1834.J THE PUMA, 269 
dad, on the sea-coast, where a rich Haciendero gave us lodgings. 
I stayed here the two ensuing days, and although very unwell, 
managed to collect from the tertiary formation some marine 
shells. 
24th.—Our course was now directed towards Valparaiso, 
which with great difficulty I reached on the 27th, and was there 
confined to my bed till the end of October. During this time I 
was an inmate in Mr. Corfield’s house, whose kindness to me J do 
not know how to express. 
t will here add a few observations on some of the animals and 
birds of Chile. The Puma, or South American Lion, is not 
uncommon. This animal has a wide geographical range; being 
found from the equatorial forests, throughout the deserts of Pata- 
gonia, as far south as the damp and cold latitudes (58° to 54°) 
of Tierra del Fuego. I have seen its footsteps in the Cordil- 
-lera of central Chile, at an elevation of at least 10,000 feet. 
In La Plata the puma preys chiefly on deer, ostriches, bizcacha, 
and other small quadrupeds; it there seldom attacks cattle or 
horses, and most rarely man. In Chile, however, it destroys 
many young horses and cattle, owing probably to the scarcity of 
other quadrupeds: I heard, likewise, of two men and a woman 
who had been thus killed. It is asserted that the puma always 
kills its prey by springing on the shoulders, and then drawing 
back the head with one of its paws, until the vertebrae break : 
I have seen in Patagonia, the skeletons of guanacos, with their 
necks thus dislocated. 
The puma, after eating its fill, covers the carcass with many 
large bushes, and lies down to watch it. This habit is often the 
cause of its being discovered ; for the condors wheeling in the 
‘air, every now and then descend to partake of the feast, and 
being angrily driven away, rise all together on the wing. The 
Chileno Guaso then knows there is ‘a lion watching his prey— 
the word is given—and men and dogs hurry to the chase. Sir 
F. Head says that a Gaucho in the Pampas, upon merely seeing 
some condors wheeling in the air, cried “A lion!” I could 
never myself meet with any one who pretended to such pewers 
of discrimination. It is asserted, that if a puma has once been 
betrayed by thus watching the earcass, and has then been hunted, 
